Daming Yuanfu

In the study of the master of the House of Nissin in Nanning Hou Mansion, a special glass table lamp named "Jinghua Crystal Lotus Table Lamp" produced in Shimazu Shimizu Castle in Japan has been lit. A large amount of information related to the Secretariat and the Ministry of Internal Affairs sent by Gao Qi has also been filled with Gao Jingshi's huge rosewood desk with a sun carving and sitting on a python pattern.

Nanning Hou Gao, the chief minister of the Ming Dynasty Cabinet and the Minister of Household Affairs, sat at his desk with a pragmatic expression and went through these submissions, articles, reports and files one by one, trying to find the answer he wanted.

"Jinghua Port Shanghai Port Report: There were 96 merchant ships leaving port in the first quarter of this year, 46 less than the first quarter of last year. There were 32 large ships leaving the port in the first quarter of this year, 19 less than last year; CSSC 2 Seventeen ships, ten less than last year; thirty-seven small boats, seventeen less than last year. There were 104 merchant ships entering Hong Kong in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 27 ships from the first quarter of last year...

According to the research and judgment of the Port Authority, the increase in ships entering the port and the decrease in ships leaving the port in the first quarter of this year were mainly due to the impact of the war. Among them, the main reason was that Japan's civil war led to Beijing's trade blockade, and the Western Expedition in Southern Xinjiang led to a decrease in Southeast Asian trade volume as a secondary reason.

In addition, Luzon's re-export trade, which is handled by the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance, also experienced a significant decline in the first quarter of this year. The reason for this has not yet been identified, and it may be necessary to coordinate with the Beiyang Fleet to learn the details. Reported by Jinghua Shanghai Port Authority. "

Holding this report in hand, Gao Pragmatic pondered for a long time, and finally sighed in relief and murmured: "If Liu Xin had not gone to southern Xinjiang, I should have known the whole story long ago, why didn't I realize it suddenly until it happened."

He really felt this.

Zhu Yijun can almost act as a hands-off shopkeeper, and at most he can make decisions on some major matters. This is because the cabinet led by a highly pragmatic leader has drafted handling suggestions for him on most specific matters.

All memorials sent to Zhu Yijun will generally be divided into three categories by the cabinet, and then sent by the Supervisor of Ceremonies according to this classification: one category is urgent and important; one category is important but not necessarily urgent; and the last category is insignificant.

At this time, Zhu Yijun will first look at the first category, roughly taking a look at what Shu Wen said. After having an understanding, he will look at the response strategies proposed by the cabinet vote. Then Zhu Yijun will probably only need the word "can" from Zhu to approve it, and then hand it over to Secretary Li. Prison.

According to the emperor's "yes" (agreement), the ceremonial supervisor will write an imperial edict in Pianwuliliu according to the method proposed in the vote, and send it to the cabinet again for review. After the cabinet re-examined the imperial edict and found it to be ok, they signed it and sent it to the Sixth Section. The Sixth Section reviewed it and it was correct, signed it, approved it and sent it to the General Secretary. This is a basic process, and the following two are the same.

After reading the first category, the emperor will look at the second category, which is important but not urgent matters. There are actually many matters of this type. For example, some officials suggested tightening the academic style and made suggestions one, two, three, and four.

The matters mentioned in this kind of memorial are definitely important, but the cabinet may not think that it needs to be done immediately, so the votes are drawn up as 1, 2, 3, and 4 to correspond, saying that your idea is very good, and I (the cabinet vote is planned to use the tone of the emperor) also think What you said makes sense, but due to reasons such as one, two, three, and four, it is temporarily inconvenient to execute these tasks. Finally, a few words of comfort.

Generally speaking, when Zhu Yijun reads the first type of memorials and drafts, he is more serious and examines them more carefully. When it comes to the second type, he is just shaking his legs and stuffing snacks into his mouth. Chew, read it hastily and say "yes"... The following procedures are carried out according to the first category.

In the third category, Zhu Yijun would still read it in his early years, but now he basically doesn’t. It’s hard to say that he is negligent in politics, because this category is really meaningless.

For example, a certain Beijing official was sent to another place (not necessarily demoted, but could also be promoted) and wrote a short essay to express his greetings. He said that the minister had been away from the capital for more than a year and missed the emperor. Then he rambled on and wrote a thousand or two thousand words. In the end, he found that there was no work-related content.

Don't think it's all nonsense, the cabinet still has to draft a reply, because the emperor also needs to answer this kind of greeting. However, Gao Pingshi is also very lazy at this point. He usually only writes four words: "consolation as usual."

Zhu Yijun was even lazier than Gao Pragmatic. He didn't even bother to write the word "ke", and directly ordered Chen Ju: "From now on, these kind of greetings can be written as written, and there is no need to wait for Zhu's approval." So it was formed. As a rule, the memorials that have been approved by Emperor Zhu are placed in the pile on the far left and do not need to be approved by Emperor Zhu. The Director of Ceremonies can take them back and write a reply according to the "as usual comfort" drafted on the ticket.

In fact, this kind of memorial that looks for trouble is not only found in the Ming Dynasty, but has existed in almost every dynasty. Among them, the Tatar Qing Dynasty left the most authentic works because they were relatively recent. For example, the Forbidden City has published a large number of "nonsense excerpts" about the responses of Qing emperors. There are many, many. Here is just a more interesting example, or a person. :

During the Kangxi period, Sun Wencheng, a weaver in Hangzhou, wrote "Taiwan Zhu Yigui gathered a crowd and raised an army" one day. The content was actually one sentence: Report to the emperor that Zhu Yigui gathered a crowd and raised an army! ——Note that this guy not only didn’t give the time, but also the location was just “Taiwan” in general.

Kang Mazi replied: "I really don't understand your words without beginning or end."

In fact, Kang Mazi's reply was very polite, because the news of the Hangzhou Weaving Report was actually old news. Someone had reported it as early as two months ago, and it was reported by the then Governor of Fujian and Zhejiang. At that time Kang Mazi replied that the matter was a bit big and he was writing a recruitment edict.

According to historical records, Zhu Yigui started an uprising at the end of April that year, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang reported it in early May, the Qing troops landed in mid-June, and the situation calmed down at the end of June. However, Sun Wencheng, a weaver from Hangzhou, told the emperor in July that "someone in Taiwan has gathered to raise troops"... You can imagine Kang Mazi's mood at that time.

However, Sun Wencheng, the careless man from Hangzhou, continued to commit suicide. He wrote a note to greet the Holy Spirit, and also mentioned that the abbot of Fayu Temple passed away, and a scholar named Qiu Zhaoao also died some time ago.

Kang Mazi replied: Got it. Please fold it here and put it in an envelope. It is rude and disrespectful. (You put the note of greetings to me and this memorial in the same envelope. Isn’t it because you have an itchy thing to clean up?)

This old man Sun Wencheng is not only confused, but he also likes to say hello. According to the released records, he will post a message about saying hello in about two or three months. There is nothing wrong with him other than saying hello. Most of Kang Mazi's replies were: "I'm fine," but one of them, maybe because he was in a good mood, he wrote a few more words: "I'm very fine, and I'm a little fatter."

Sun Wencheng's nonsense was written all the way from Kangxi to Yongzheng. I don't know if Kangxi was numb, but Yongzheng probably was really numb, so once Sun Wencheng submitted a "weather and grain price report", Yongzheng replied as usual: I install. You see, sometimes the emperor is not so easy to be, especially the emperor of the Qing Dynasty is different from the Ming Dynasty. The emperor of the Ming Dynasty was a Han emperor. These matters could be left to the cabinet to deal with them in categories. He could handle the big and important matters himself and handle the minor matters as usual.

The Qing Dynasty can't play like this. They are a small clan and a big clan. They are worried about changes anytime and anywhere. The emperor has to deal with big and small matters. He has to read all the memorials in person before he can feel at ease, so there is such a stupid dialogue as above.

Of course, this type of dialogue also existed in the Ming Dynasty. After Gao Pragmatic became the first assistant, he would put these memorials in the third category. In addition to greetings and so on, there are also things such as "A chaste woman of such and such a place, please ask the emperor to build an archway", " "Someone in a certain place picks up gold without being ignorant", "Someone in a certain place is eager for public justice and does good deeds so and so"... It stands to reason that these are all things that promote social integrity (at least at this time). For ancient China, which pays attention to the rule of virtue, it is necessary The reward, and the forced Lama, must be given by the emperor, but you can't allow him to submit the memorial.

However, for the emperor, aren’t I busy with all kinds of things every day? You can just handle this little thing by yourself as usual, you are so careless!

Therefore, it goes without saying how important a well-functioning cabinet is. However, Zhu Yijun has a cabinet led by Gao Pragmatic to manage it for him, summarizing the major and important events at present, so that he can handle national affairs in a clear and logical manner. However, after Gao Pingshi, Secretary-General Liu Xin, went to southern Xinjiang to supervise Gao Yuan's Western Expedition, there was no one around him to help him summarize the major events in Beijing recently, and this... was what he had done this time. The most important objective reason for the sudden rampage of the Jiangnan chaebol was not discovered in time.

Although there are various secretaries in the Jinghua Secretariat, there is only one secretary-general. The most important job of the secretary-general is to summarize and classify things, and then act as a consultant for Gao Pragmatic's boss based on the specific circumstances of these matters. He checked and filled in the gaps.

Now that Liu Xin has been gone for nearly half a year, no one can be as sensitive as her about the problems caused by what happened in the first quarter and report the anomalies to Gao Yingshi, and Gao Yingshi has been involved in a lot of foreign affairs in the past six months - the battlefield Opened three, internally to ensure the logistics of the Western Expeditionary Army, to provide disaster relief in various places across the country, and to prepare for the next step of military reform and imperial examination reform... He is also an ordinary person, how can he pay attention to those who have not been summarized? The summarized messages sent by various departments in Beijing?

For example, Gao Pragmatic's first reaction after reading the news just reported from Shanghai Port was: Oh, the trade volume has dropped because I blocked Japan and fought in Nanyang. That's normal. It will be fine after the war is over.

Therefore, his reply was no better than those of the emperors in historical materials: "I have read it, and the fleet will contact you for consultation before reporting."

But at this time, because of the Jiangnan chaebol's rampage that he couldn't understand, which led to the direct impeachment of Zhejiang Ningshao Bingbei, his chief minister, he had to carefully sort out the various materials collected in the past six months - and he was It's a professional, otherwise I wouldn't have figured it out so quickly - only to find out that the problem is actually not difficult to find.

The most straightforward thing is that the war between Japan and southern Xinjiang caused serious damage to the business of the Jiangnan chaebols, and this account was directly charged to his head.

But Gao's pragmatic understanding is clearer than that of people of this era, because he knows history - world history, so when he gets serious at this moment, he quickly understands that there are actually some changes in the global economy at this time, and among these changes are the Almost all the parts related to Ming Dynasty are not conducive to Ming Dynasty.

Let me talk about this one by one, the first keyword: price revolution. The so-called price revolution actually refers to the depreciation of gold and silver and the rise in prices in Europe caused by the Spanish colonial empire plundering massive amounts of gold and silver from the Americas and bringing them back to Europe. However, the emergence of high pragmatism has caused some changes between this price revolution and the price revolutions in history.

I won’t talk much about the historical price revolution here (they say that if you want to know, you will check it out, so I’ll believe it first). This change mainly affects two aspects: First, the Ming Dynasty Economic Consortium (Da Ming + Jinghua Real Estate) (controlled area) is much more powerful than the Ming Dynasty's "silver black hole" effect in history; second, Beijing forced Spain to hand over the Philippines and Portugal to withdraw from Nanyang, which allowed the Spanish-Portuguese Communist Federation to concentrate more power back on Europe, while at the same time it was in Asia The benefits obtained may not be reduced.

These two changes directly led to a certain degree of change in the situation in Europe. The changes were also reflected in two aspects, namely the economic aspect and the military aspect.

In terms of economy, although the Spanish-Portuguese Communist Federation needs to pay taxes on its trade in East Asia and Southeast Asia, its highly pragmatic "mercantilism" (mercantilism in a non-traditional sense) makes their trade volume in East Asia smaller than in history. This has greatly increased, which allows them to obtain more goods from East and Southeast Asia to sell to Europe, or for their own use, which greatly enhances the economic strength of the Spanish-Portuguese Communist Federation.

The most direct manifestation is that the Dutch War of Independence in history was originally an "Eighty Years' War" with a "Twelve Years Truce" in the middle. As a result, this time Spain's finances were much stronger than in history, so the original war broke out The siege of Ostend in 1601-1604 occurred nearly two years earlier, and this time the Dutch suffered a worse defeat than in history.

Although the Spanish and Portuguese navy still suffered the misfortune of the failure of the Invincible Fleet to invade England before, it recovered its strength faster and almost completely blocked the coast of the Netherlands before the "Siege of Ostend".

At the same time, due to war needs, the Spanish and Portuguese empires reduced their purchases of other goods when they came to trade in southern Xinjiang, and instead increased their purchases of weapons and ammunition. This is not surprising, as the Spanish and Portuguese had already seen Jinghua’s efforts. Armed and prepared, and their own production capacity is not sufficient (it has not been sufficient in history, the Spanish characteristic is that I have mines, and it is better to buy than to build), so purchasing from Beijing has become a natural choice.

The huge profits on arms are no worse than silk, porcelain and spices. Of course, the part that affects the Jiangnan chaebol is that they don’t have to go to Shanghai and Ningbo to buy arms (they couldn’t go directly before, but to do business with Jinghua, Jinghua’s own ships also have to go there) ), just go directly to Dingnan.

In addition, their transportation capacity is also limited. To transport arms, they have to reduce silk and porcelain. This directly leads to the Jiangnan chaebol's main business being almost cut in half.

Some people may ask, is the business almost dead? The answer is: almost. The reason is not complicated: in the past few years, this type of business has been experiencing strong consumption but insufficient supply, so the Jiangnan chaebols worked hard to expand production capacity. But whether it’s building a factory, expanding the scale of the mulberry forest, or recruiting people, all of this requires money. Where does the money come from?

The answer is: loans from banks that have emerged in recent years such as Jinghua Bank. Yes, all economic development to this stage will inevitably take the path, and people are already taking it in the Ming Dynasty at this moment.

Even though the Jiangnan chaebols disliked Jinghua One Hundred and Twenty, no one had trouble with money - Jinghua Bank had already publicly demonstrated their strength and was recognized as the most reputable bank in the entire Ming Dynasty. No one believed that it would go bankrupt.

Coupled with the advanced nature of Jinghua Bank's loan business, is it any wonder that the Jiangnan Chaebol approached Jinghua Bank for loans? You know, the Jiangnan chaebol is already close to being a capitalist at this time. Could anyone expect the capitalists to refuse to make money out of face?

In this way, trouble comes: I asked your family to borrow such a large amount of money to put into production, but your family went to war and my business was ruined. At this time, I didn't get anything, not to mention, after the whole family went bankrupt, the collateral (Factory buildings, equipment, mulberry forests, etc.) still have to be compensated to you?

Damn it, you can’t kill the pig as hard as you do on the killing plate!

Gao Pragmatic's sigh before was the same as this: It's really not me who wants to harm you... Okay, I know I can't explain this clearly.
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Thanks to the book friend "Old West of Altay" for your monthly ticket support, thank you!

PS: ...Forget it, some comments made me not want to PS.